Letter: Santa Monica Airport an asset

I have read the staff report that is on the agenda for the March 25 council meeting. As a long-time user of the Santa Monica Airport facilities and as a property owner who has lived under the airport flight path for over 30 years, I am opposed to the conclusions and the direction that the staff proposes to take.

The airport is an important economic engine for Santa Monica and the surrounding area. Roughly $275 million of economic output and the employment of over 1,500 people who then support families, pay taxes and vote stands to be destroyed by the actions you have directed staff to enact. The leases and landing fees support all of the other airport activities.

The constant clamoring over issues of noise, pollution and safety by a minority of residents of the surrounding area does not adequately represent the feelings of the majority of either Santa Monicans or the residents of the surrounding communities.

There are fewer flights entering and leaving the airport than at almost any time in its history. There is less noise than ever as total flights diminish and both jets and propeller planes advance technologically and become quieter and more pollution free. In fact, staff has been unable to show any statistics that point to any major health or safety issues at the airport.

In spite of a 2010 Environmental Protection Agency study that showed no cause for concern about leaded aviation fuel, the Federal Aviation Administration, in conjunction with major refiners, has worked diligently to replace leaded fuel and Shell Oil has now applied for a permit to sell unleaded aviation fuel. This will soon alleviate any possible concern about this form of pollution.

No matter what the anti-airport activists would have you believe, in the 90-plus years of the airport’s operation, there has never been an aviation accident that resulted in the death of any resident of Santa Monica on the ground. Residents under the flight path have a larger chance of being hit by lightning than being hit by an airplane.

Not only is the airport a vital reliever for surrounding airports and a lifeline in any crisis such as an earthquake, tsunami or other disaster, it is currently the originator of over 800 Angel Flights per year conducted by volunteer pilots who use their own planes, free of charge, to fly children and adults to receive critical medical care. It is also the start or end point of numerous time-critical and life-saving organ donations flown in by jet.

All of these benefits are put in jeopardy by your proposals to shorten the runway or close the airport. Don’t let the constant complaints of a few destroy all the benefits the airport provides to the community.

I ask the council to immediately restore the Airport Commission to its previous balance of all the stakeholders who use and live around the airport and to instruct staff to diligently work to make the historic Santa Monica Airport once again the vital asset to the city that it should be.

Let’s do this. Let’s put an airport where the Hines Project wants to buiild. It’s perfect, these few pilots who like the convenience of their own private airport can take the Subway there. Then we build the Hines Project where the airport is, and EVERYONE WINS!

Now is the time listen to the Santa Monica residents about how to use the land and not the few pilots who like the convenience of their own private airport. The noise, pollution, environmental damage and lack of sustainability now make it imperative to finally shut SMO down.

In reality, this is ALL about the convenience. There are MORE than enough airports just a few minutes away. There is: LAX 18 minutes, Hawthorne 19 minutes, Van Nuys 25 minutes, Compton/Woodley 31 minutes, Whiteman-Pacoima 31 minutes, Burbank 35 minutes, El Monte 36 minutes, Long Beach 37 minutes.

By the way, San Francisco with 800,000 people doesn’t even have an airport and they do just fine. I think that Santa Monica with just 90,000 people will do just fine too.

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